Tuesday, October 30, 2012

October 30, 2012 Arlington, VA.

For some oddball reason, I have tried to stay off the blogs during the presidential campaign season, content to sit back and see which candidate will do the worst job in presenting himself to the electorate, and whom they will ultimately believe. That's always even more difficult when you have someone running against an incumbent.

This election season, however, is becoming unique. For those of you old enough to remember him, Theodore White wrote a series of books, Making of the President, during the 60's and early 70's, and tried to dissect as objectively as possible the events of the political campaign of that year. Unfortunately, when we need him the most, Mr. White is long gone, and sorely missed for that very objectivity that seems to be lacking in the media today.

From my perspective, most of the campaign thus far has been a series of lies, missteps, and clear attempts to blacken as much of the personal reputation of the candidates as possible, leaving the public to decide who actually stands for what. That situation has created an election scenario that is scary at best, and possibly disastrous for the future.

Nothing, however, is more disconcerting than the politicalization of the incident which resulted in the killing of Ambassador Stephens, and his protectors, in Bengazi, Libya. The Democrats, up to the President himself, would have you believe that his Republican opponent wants to take a human tragedy and turn it to political capital. That, I believe, is far from the truth, coming from a man who, it seems, knew about, possibly watched, and was involved in decisions that contributed to their deaths as much as if he were on the scene.

The Obama Administration tried to carefully orchestrate both the timing of the news, and the story itself, to suit their [political purposes--they wanted no black marks on their view, often espoused, that al-Qaeda was either dead or dying. Again, it seems, nothing is further from the truth. Indeed, Obama sucked his UN Ambassador, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense into support roles, while literally throwing the intelligence community under a bus as the culprits.

He may have been able to do it, if not for the documentation (e-mails, cables, etc.) that seem to have a way of leaking in these instances, and information on the drones overhead taking in the pictures in real-time that were transmitted back to the White House Situation Room, and other key decision points. it really doesn't matter if Obama sat there and watched--if his people did not tell him about it as they should have, or they decided to keep it from him, there should already have been a list of firings published in the Washington Post and the New York Times. Instead, there is stonewalling all through the administration.

Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta are fine if not great Americans. Why have they not resigned in disgust? Adlai Stevenson did as did Eliot Richardson, and over things equally as squalid as Bengazi--Cuba, and Watergate--but got no one killed.

If Obama does into exile on November 6th, it will be because he promised openness, honesty, and transparency to the American people, and, instead, gave them lies, deceit, and stonewalling to preserve his election chances.